WHAT A BEAUTY. REMINDS ME OF THAT STATUE, THE BABE WITHOUT THE ARMS. by Suzette Smith If you appreciate the Mercury's interesting and useful news & culture reporting, consider making a small monthly contribution to support our editorial team. Your donation is tax-deductible.  Good Morning, Portland: Why do the birds continue to scream into the void, their voices broken and fragmented, dancing through the air like desperate whispers? Why do the stars flicker, cold, distant—alive above us? Don't they know that David Lynch has died? We are like the dreamer who dreams and then lives inside the dream. Let's hit the news. IN LOCAL NEWS:• Portland City Council created eight new committees yesterday, tasked with discussing city policy subjects like transportation and infrastructure, housing, arts, and the economy. Mercury reporter Taylor Griggs has more on why that's actually important. • The Oregon DMV has debuted several "self-service express kiosks" in Fred Meyer stores around Portland (but not in Portland). Folks willing to fork over an additional $4.95 transaction fee can now renew their vehicle registration and print out new license plate stickers from a convenient supermarket chain everything store. And while Fred Meyers are only marginally less annoying to go to than the DMV, it seems kind of off that the state DMV is creating monopolized access in what are essentially Krogers.  • Hot new werewolf movie Wolf Man hits theaters starting today. Why do you care? Because it was written and directed by Leigh Whannell, who wrote and directed the well-regarded The Invisible Man. Is it any good? And what does it have to do with that The Mummy remake starring Tom Cruise from 2017? Film critic Dom Sinacola explains. • We've got a new food week in the works, and this time it's wieners.           View this post on Instagram                       A post shared by Portland Mercury (@portlandmercury) • In this week's Pop Quiz PDX, "a celebrity cyclist, Portland’s bully birds, and the christening of city snow plows." • The 10 am Friday morning ticket drop approaches. This week, you can swoop up seats to Khruangbin, Coheed and Cambria, and Perfume Genius, among others. On the subject of Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon: The Super Live—which hits Keller Auditorium in March—I've always heard surprisingly good things about the Sailor Moon live musical shows. If you ever got into the 2003 live action TV series, which had an arguably darker vibe, that show took a lot of inspiration from those stagings. It'll be interesting to see what reviews of Super Live report. • Let us close out local news with a single from the new Perfume Genius record, which doesn't even come out until the end of March—but anyway, here's "It's a Mirror." IN NATIONAL / INTERNATIONAL NEWS:• Plans for a cease-fire in Gaza, between Israeli forces and Hamas militants, moved forward this morning. Israel’s security cabinet approved an agreement, which would release 33 hostages held by Hamas and "hundreds of Palestinian prisoners," according to the New York Times. The security cabinet's approval signals a strong likelihood that the accord could soon be approved by the country's full cabinet... and they could all be cease-fire'n by Sunday. Of course, this is just one step on the long and winding road towards peace. And Israel is still bombing Gaza, with the Palestinian Civil Defense pointing out that more than 100 people have died due to the strikes since the cease-fire announcement. The Israeli military replied essentially: yes, we bombed like 50 things on Thursday. • The other thing happening on Sunday? TikTok is about the be banned in the US, beginning Sunday. It's unlikely that the app will immediately shutter, but it will become gradually and then noticeably unusable—so like Twitter. The Supreme Court announced this morning that the ban sounds totally fine to them. • President Biden, sipping from a goblet, doing that whisper voice he does, like: "tell Putin I funded the drones. I want him to know it was me."   The Biden administration declassified one last piece of information about how it has helped Ukraine: an account of its once-secret support for the country’s military drone industry.[image or embed] — The New York Times (@nytimes.com) January 17, 2025 at 2:32 AM   • Switch 2 is slated to be released in 2025, but probably not until June. • King of weird cinema David Lynch has died, his family announced yesterday. On Facebook the family wrote "There’s a big hole in the world now that he’s no longer with us. But, as he would say, 'Keep your eye on the donut and not on the hole.'” Lynch was 78 and had publicly suffered from emphysema, which he announced in August. Brace yourself for a lot of sweet tributes and Julee Cruise. There's something about Lynch's surreal mystery Twin Peaks that has always vibed with Portlanders. We don't have any specific monopoly on it, but we do like 1) coffee, 2) pie, 3) meditating, 4) running around in the woods—the list goes on. Lynch was a prolific innovator, and we cherish his memory and works. Let's get into the weekend with some motivation from our fallen fav: